Gardiner’s predicted rise of far right has come true

Eight months ago, the excellent Labour media performer Barry Gardiner gave a sobering warning to the ‘centrist’ Establishment during a Radio 4 interview.

Gardiner warned that if the democratic outcome of the Brexit referendum was ignored or thwarted, it would feed a rise in far right politics:

SKWAWKBOX view:

Gardiner’s prediction has proven chillingly accurate – but the Establishment has not heeded the lesson and is still not heeding the lesson.

And the determination of Labour’s centrist cohort to keep misrepresenting Labour’s position – largely an attempt to weaken Corbyn by damaging Labour electorally – by claiming the party is anti-Brexit and in favour of a new referendum is recklessly fuelling that rise.

It is inexcusable – and only serves to underscore the importance, for the whole country, of Labour jettisoning all talk of a new vote.

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A ‘second referendum’ would show contempt for the electorate as a whole-the same contempt shared by those who argue that The establishment always knows best, whether the matter at hand be the imposition of austerity in order to finance a bank bail out, attacking one of America’s selected sacrificial victims or submitting fiscal and economic policy proposals to neoliberal bureaucrats in Brussels.
The reality is that the European Community is unlikely to last until 2021.

RH really needs to learn to differentiate between what he and others view as democracy which incidentally seems to be whatever will answer the needs of the moment,and those others,whatever we might think of their decision on Brexit,who would regard another vote as a betrayal of democracy.I find the refusal of RH and company, to recognise that others might have perfectly legitimate view about a second referendum which is at odds with their own personally extremely irritating,and leaves us in danger of encouraging the forces that Gardiner warns of a platform to build on.

You’ll note there are no cries for another election, only the usual spin comments about having lost.

@RH I’m not into stamps, thanks all the same. As for this particular constitutional issue, the HoC said that it would honour the results. You are aware of the word honour, and what it entails? You do understand what it means, don’t you?

So we enter the world of neverendums… What will you do if remain loses again?

because in the eyes of some left-wingers/lexiteers our wish to want to remain in and reform the EU, wanting to be part of the European community does not fit in with their school of thought. Maybe it is easier to condemn than look constructively for solutions to improve situations.

OK, Sabine : What features of the EU would you “reform”, and Why ? So far , apart from suddenly cynically , in desperation, adopting Jeremy’s “Remain and Reform” slogan from 2015 , no-one from the uncritically pro-EU Remain camp has offered any proposals at all for what needs “reforming ” . Strange that. Mind you, neither you or any of the other three regular pro EU trolls on here have ever offered any counter-arguments to the very detailed critiques of the neoliberal EU , put up here by socialists , ever. Because you all love the EU just as it is .

The European Union must better serve its people. The May 2019 European elections are our
opportunity to change the EU and build a fairer Europe. Our societies are still bearing the
social costs of the 2008 economic crisis, and we have urgent challenges to face. Europe needs
to overcome inequality, fight for tax justice, tackle the threat of climate change, harness the
digital revolution, ensure a fair agricultural transformation, manage migration better, and
guarantee security for all Europeans. Europe needs a change of leadership and policy
direction, leaving behind the neoliberal and conservative models of the past, and focusing on
quality jobs for its people, a healthy environment, social security and an economic model which
addresses inequality and the cost of living. The status quo is not an option. Radical change is
required to build a project for the future which all Europeans can believe in. Nostalgic
nationalists are selling nothing but dangerous illusions, putting past progress and European
values at risk. We – Socialists and Democrats – must guarantee citizens’ wellbeing and
ensure social and ecological progress, leaving no person and no territory behind in the
green and digital transitions. Europe must move to a circular model of production and
consumption that respects our planet’s limits. We want to strengthen Europe’s unity while
respecting its diversity. As Socialists and Democrats, we propose a new Social Contract for
Europe.

@NVLA “It’s still a superior number. I doubt very much that any remainers would be calling for a second “confirmation” if it was the other way around.”

Obviously the situation has only arisen because negotiations have proven so difficult – not something anyone predicted despite leavers’ claims to have known “exactly what we were voting for.”
If it had been “the easiest deal ever” as was claimed by some we’d have left long ago.
“If it was the other way around” there would have been no negotiations and it still wouldn’t be known how difficult leaving would be.
Your point makes no sense at all.

Good try, but none of our four 24/7 paid trolls have EVER made any criticisms of the EU at all – certainly not anything from the PES Manifesto. Unfortunately the entire PES Manifesto is laughable feel-good pseudo Leftish Liberal waffle – lacking even basic credibility because the EU as now structured has neoliberalist economic principles and an undemocratic , bureaucracy and Council of ministers-led, decision-making structure that quite simply precludes significant change – except in an even more neoliberal, TTIP and CETA deal-signing direction. What the Remainer bogus “reformers” amongst the majority of Remainers, who want no reform at all, really mean, is , “let’s continue our middle class privilege gravy train via the EU as it is – and if challenged claim we want to make it into a non neoliberal entity”. The same argument used by those who vote to support maintaining the useless nuclear deterrent – whilst claiming to be nevertheless in favour of “multilateral nuclear disarmament” – a fantasy development that simply will never happen.

The PES manifesto sounds lovely…..except there’s no mention of tearing up the Maastricht/Lisbon treaties which you would need to do in order to implement the manifesto, along with dumping the Euro because of economic inequality and starting a new debate on green issues, telling people the truth that the whole green policy relies on the falling birth rate and consequently, less people employed along with an aging population that will see 1:1 employed/unemployed by the mid 20s. This is “the plan”.
It’s all a load of cobblers, there is no European ” Socialist” plan, just neoliberal tinkering and Europe becoming much poorer to implement the global plan of smaller populations under green auspices.

Skwawkbox, correct me if I’m wrong but I think Gardiner’s words and your headline could be paraphrased as “denying UKIP and the far right success on their flagship policy of Brexit will gain them support.”

Is the claim now that it’s denial of success, not success, that breeds success in politics?

Should the principle of humiliating the far right whenever they strut publicly – to prevent them gaining support by looking strong – now also be discarded?

We all know the far right hides behind UKIP’s cloak of legitimacy – I’d argue that it’s any further success we need to guard against, and that Brexit is exactly that success.

Yes you might well get a rise outta me, you fucking planet. I won’t hold back.

But know this,prick, Remain LOST the vote and it’s they having the tantrum. You (personally) talk about NOTHING else. QED.

Personally, if you was having a face-to-face debate with a far-right extremist – Of exactly the type that your type are spawning – they’d no doubt end up breaking your jaw; whereas I would do no more than shrug my shoulders and say: ‘Meh!! You WERE warned’ .

Except I’m not the kind of gobshite incessantly shrieking about the allegedly ‘unfair’ and ‘irrelevant’ result of a referendum; telling people that in essence they’re thick and expecting them to change their minds to suit my agenda and keep me in my comfort zone – And then expecting said people NOT to be exasperated to the point of becoming violent by telling them I’m not the problem.

You and the other twunt are the most condescending, sneering, supercilious knobheads I’ve ever come across, with your holier than thou attitude, and thinking your shit don’t stink.

Well it does…It stinks to the high heavens.

As I said, if it happens to you, or any one of you mouthpieces don’t complain you weren’t warned. But you will anyway. And you’d no doubt blame those same people who warned you.

Oh, and by the way, I never mentioned once that it’d be me breaking your jaw so you can make all the remarks about me being a ‘big strong boy’ all you like, squire. Water off a duck’s…But you’ve driven me to the point where I could understand why someone would, and it’d be solely because of YOUR behaviour.

There it is again: deliberate provocation from someone who’s admitted they’ll rise to it, them claiming being some sort of victim, as well as claiming the moral high ground; followed by puerile remarks like that.

Now, imagine if steve h was face to face with a far right knuckledragger instead of on an internet forum….It wouldn’t end well for steve, would it?

I’m at a loss to see the point you are trying to make. All the evidence indicates that the majority of both Labour’s members and voters support a PV and staying in the EU. The point is that the leadership is at odds with the membership on this.

SteveH,proceeds to make a claim for which there is no evidence.ie that Labour voters support another referendum.I acknowledged that some Labour voters do,what is so difficult about acknowledging that some Labour voters don’t,and they are often in key Labour seats.

john thatcher 14/05/2019 at 5:54 pm · ·SteveH,proceeds to make a claim for which there is no evidence.ie that Labour voters support another referendum.I acknowledged that some Labour voters do,what is so difficult about acknowledging that some Labour voters don’t,and they are often in key Labour seats.

I have absolutely no problem at all in acknowledging that a small minority of voters and an even smaller minority of members agree with you.

As for evidence all the academic studies and polls are consistently giving similar results (including Leave Means Leave own poll. Do you have any credible evidence to counter this?

https://esrcpartymembersproject.org/2019/01/02/love-corbyn-hate-brexit/Some 83% of Labour members we surveyed voted Remain in 2016 – a much higher proportion, incidentally, than the 60% of 2017 Labour voters who did the same. And it is clear, firstly, that the vast majority of those members have no regrets about doing so and, secondly, that they would do so again in another referendum – something that they want the party and its leader, Mr Corbyn, to endorse. It’s also clear that if he doesn’t, then a fair few of them
would consider leaving the party.

Some 73% of current Labour voters think – in hindsight and irrespective of what they themselves voted in 2016 – that the UK was wrong to vote to leave the EU. That proportion rises to 89% among Labour members – and is a view shared, too, by 31% of the small minority of members who did vote Leave in the Referendum.
It may not be too surprising, then, that most Labour members – like most current Labour voters – would like to see the party fully support holding a new referendum on Brexit. But the size of the majority that wants to see that shift is nonetheless striking. Some 72% of Labour members (compared to 57% of current Labour voters and 61% of 2017 Labour voters) want Corbyn to fully support a new referendum on Brexit.

If such a referendum – a ‘People’s vote’ as some call it – is held, it is clear which way Labour’s rank and file would go. Some 88% of them say their first preference in a three-way referendum would be to remain in the EU, with only 3% saying that it would be to leave the EU with Mrs May’s deal and only 5% saying it would be leaving with no deal. The figures for current Labour voters are 71%, 8%, and 12% respectively.

I will vote Labour in the EU elections because I believe that protest votes rarely result in the intended outcome. I will vote for the party that I believe will represent my best interests in the EU and the MEPs that give the greatest chance of the PES candidate being appointed President of the EU Commission. Also the electoral system for MEPs favours the larger parties so in my area a protest vote for the Greens (as an example) would be a completely wasted vote.

But the likes of SteveH and RH are one of the biggest obstacles to us doing so, by refusing to engage with the neglect of and contempt for leave-voting communities which caused them to vote as they did.

A look at the polls for the EU elections shows that the country is still split down the middle and there could easily still be a majority in favour of leaving.

We remainers need to stop deluding ourselves if we are to make any progress.

“refusing to engage with the neglect of and contempt for leave-voting communities which caused them to vote as they did”

Pure fiction. The reason we’re Labour Party members is to change things – but that’s not the same as confusing a Tory propaganda coup with a political vision. It wasn’t – as your ears will tell you if you listen to a mixture of voices talking about Brexit.

The other part of the fiction is that the Brexit impulse came mainly from the insurgence of the disadvantaged (another Farago propaganda line). It didn’t.

Firstly, the core of its support were reasonably well-off older Tory voters in the south.

Secondly – the politically aware core Labour support was majority pro-Remain in *every social category* … and still is.

The main correlates (tendencies, not absolutes) of a Brexit vote were actually (a) lack of education and (b) increasing age.

The idea of the Brexit vote as an expression of a ‘working class’ insurgency crumbles in the face of the facts – which contradict the wishful-thinking about the nature of class in the 21st century and, more importantly, place the majority of Labour supporters (the politically aware) clearly on the side of ‘Remain’.

Sorry, Ultraviolet, it’s just that we’ere not swallowing extreme right establishment propaganda lines.

On the specifics of a proper (or more informed) referendum – of course there is the risk that the regressive tendency of Brexit could win out. The con worked first time round, after all. But I think we’re entitled to scepticism about the opposition to proving the case, which is based on non-arguments as if there was something inviolable about the last Tory cunning plot.

After all, following the illogic of the opponents would lead to the Labour Party supporting austerity, on the basis that the Tories have won the last two elections.

@The Toffee: SteveH can speak for himself – but the only people I see threatening to leave or to vote kipper or anything other than Labour – are angry brexiteers.
For myself I never have and never will vote other than Labour. Didn’t vote for TB, just didn’t vote at all.
Are you scared you’re all going to be busy when and if another referendum on a more nuanced choice than Y/N is called?
If as you guys claim the Brexit vote has hardened you’ll ace a Ref2 and we’ll be out in no time.
WTF is all the drama about?

David, this week’s poll in Labour List suggests that a lot of party members are thinking of voting for other parties in the European elections, and the slippage is almost all to clear remain parties. This whole sorry mess is pulling both major parties apart; the only consolation is that it’s hurting the tories much more.

David, I’ve already said the only issue I have with another vote (Whatever the protocols or conditions or questions) is that it will prove itself to be unnecessary and would only confirm the original result….possibly by a greater margin because of people who are thoroughly pissed off with the whole shebang….which has been solely down to those dragging the process out (remaniers)

A total waste of time, money and effort. But there’d STILL be the whining from the diehard remain supporters.

But I will NOT stand for gobshites like ‘waldorf and statler’ telling me I’m wrong, I don’t know anything, pontificating to me what’s best for me and reinventing the dictionary.

They (and anyone else including you, if you’re of the same mindset as those two morons, although in fairness you don’t employ their M.O. or attitude towards ‘dissenters’) can f**k right off if they think they can lord it over me and a majority of voters.

Barry was so correct – and of course didn’t need to be a political genius to reach that conclusion, given the highly visible electoral collapse over the last ten years of ALL the major social democratic parties across Europe , as their working class support base turned away from their failed neoliberal economic policies – towards the siren appeal of the xenophobia and pseudo “anti-elite” rhetoric of the populist Far Right.

Watching the once in a lifetime huge opportunity of a Corbyn-led Left Labour government being frittered away , not just by the predictable constant sabotage of the Blairite and old Labour Right, but by the , perhaps less predictable, utter political naivety and arrogance towards our mass working class support base exhibited repeatedly by so many of our middle class, supposedly “Left Wing” , but actually Left Liberal, post 2015 Corbyn Wave entrant mass activist membership, particularly over Brexit, is a political tragedy of historic proportions. A betting man would surely place their wager on the hoped for Left Labour led political and economic revival of the UK being ever more likely to follow the rest of mainland Europe into the dead end of government by shambolic Right Populist, and neo fascist coalitions.

48% voted Remain – they weren’t all middle class. The hyperbole about betraying our working class base is ludicrous. The entire Leave campaign was riddled with illegality and falsehood. What we have now is rampant racism from the Brexit Party and UKIP on the Trump model

Essentiially, the perception out there is that Labour is fudging and running scared of the right, making no clear distinction for itself. Aligning with extreme right policies in a deeply divided country is never a good look for Labour.

That’s what it’s about – the failure to recruit much of the opposition to right wing ideology.

RH and to add to it that has often been a feature in Labour’s past. Just don’t rock the boat, maybe then we get somewhere. Sometimes it is necessary to break some crockery. People respect honesty, they do not like uncertainty and a back and forth.

When we’re out of the EU I hope you Brexit fans have at least a little time to celebrate before ‘the economic price’ invoice comes due.
Maybe the ERG will help you out from their sterling-shorting profits.

Cobblers again. My daughter’s bank sent memorandum and video training to all employees regarding advice to business and personal account holders. Approximately 18 months after leaving without a deal, the country is likely to enter recession which will last for 3 years. The bank believes that government won’t allow interest rates to rise substantially because of the danger of repossession. Mortgage holders are being advised to transfer to a fixed rate for 5 years.
The only people panicking over Brexit are the propagandists.

I think you’ll find it’s not me spouting propaganda generated by the massively financed remain campaign and middle class media. “Trust” has nothing to do with financial advice, which I’d take any day over the rear mongering, cliff edge propaganda which everyone I know is sick to death of hearing.

lundenial – I know it’s asking a lot to come to terms with simple reality, but the mass of street propaganda was actually from the ‘Leave’ camp, in the form of the Tory foreign-owned and non-dom press. You can hear bollocks from the Mail, Express and Sun paroted every day. They have their characteristic skid-marks.

I’m intrigued, BTW, that you are quite happy to condemn the poorest to 3 years of recession (whilst the ERG etc./ laugh all the way to the bank to count their profits) after all your concern about their plight.

17.4 million voted out. Yet daily papers in their entirety total at most, 10 million sales daily. So, if we assume that only leavers buy newspapers (a fallacy) that still doesn’t account for the 7.4 million other leave voters. Then there’s the obvious remain orientated papers such as the guardian and independent….

Why can you not accept that people were capable of forming their own opinions?

Sadly, there is a link cap enabled here, but feel free to search for Donald Tusk and his end of Europe story, Cameron and his world war three story, and of course there’s Osborne and his £4k emergency budget (which I’m still waiting for…)

The EUphile trolls are quick out of the traps today. Quick out of the traps with the usual blanket dismissal of the reality staring them in the face and the now boring replacement of reasoned debate with wishful thinking. First the worst offender, RH, who seems to think that Labour is no longer the mass party of the working class and trade unions: it is that or it is nothing, as social democrats across europe have been discovering. As a resident of France who has watched as the PS destroyed the PCF ideologically and organisationally and then, job nearly done, was in turn itself destroyed (the socialists are polling in single figures for the EU elections). The PCFs erstwhile vote is now the core vote of Le Pen’s Faragiste equivalent. The last time that vote swung behind anything progressive and made a difference was when the people rejected the EU constitution in 2005 (the PCF was the only major party arguing for that position). That they were utterly ignored by the French political establishment is the main reason that Le Pen topped the 2014 EU polls France, just as UKIP did in Britain.

Now it’s not just Barry Gardiner who’s been arguing this position; almost anyone on the left who engages in analysis rather than the aforesaid airy-fairy/liberal wishful thinking mode of politics has seen it coming; Counterfire, The Communist Party, The Morning Star, the Durham Miners, CLPs that have not been entirely taken over by do-gooders & social workers, Trades Union Councils – pretty much anyone with enough nous to resist the daily poison pumped out by the Guardian. When you survey the mayhem on June 24th, with Farage, Robinson and many others of that ilk on their way to Brussels/Strasbourg in place of our Labour representatives perhaps then you FBPE/PV morons will finally come to your senses. The 2nd referendum will have already happened and you will have been punched in the face even harder than the first time.

Completely agree, and good for you. Half the Dordogne turned up for the people’s vote march and the Guardian is inundated by would be retirees moaning that ‘the pound is too low’ or ‘they won’t be able to retire to Spain’ or some other nonsense.
Good to see thoughtful comment.

Unfortunately, next week RH & Co will be saying that “Labour only did so badly because they weren’t unequivocally anti Brexit”. Somehow, a few LibDem successes will be interpreted as a would be Labour landslide if only they dumped Corbyn etc.
He’s already been laying the ground with his support and admiration for the LibDems.

Yo must get a grip on your literacy skills, BTW – your hallucinatory fantasies tend to get in the way of reading what is actually written. I have no ‘admiration’ or ‘support’ for the LibDems – just a recognition of the hard fact of the vote share, (with the Greens) in the local elections and their well-funded publicity campaign.

Guessing you probably include me in ‘& Co’ – good to see you don’t generalise like those nasty remainers.
Also good to see you’re unfazed by ‘only’ 3 years’ worth of recession too, especially when it’ll be like Torysterity on speedballs given that the cash fountain’s still a bit dry from the last Tory-built bank crash.

Yes I do include you. I’m not generalising about anything, I’m giving you straight fact as understood by economists employed by a high street bank…as opposed to the results of push polls, fear mongering, panicking spreading propagandists like yourself.

Ooh, a High Street bank, eh? You sound impressed.
I was so unimpressed when I left for the second time the one where I worked I made sure they wouldn’t ask me back again.
In the late 80′ or early 90’s a different bank had been trying to rip off a relative and I had to write them a strongly worded letter. Only one letter and the greediest, most grasping of the big banks folded immediately and paid in full – because they realised I knew exactly what they were doing and how. Apparently they’re still the hardest to make pay up. Sometimes I feel slightly guilty for not going public but I was busy with other things.
They call it the PPI scandal now.
I never panic, I’m never swayed by propaganda and I don’t spread it.
My thoughts are all my own work, for what little they’re worth these days. Little only compared to my younger self, not compared to you or anyone you know.

It’s amazing how many of these PV types rely on predicting the future (along with their cheerleaders in the Guardian) – and it’s a pessimistic view of the future that clings to the present and dares not break with it. I’m happier learning from the past alongside relying on Marx rather than the prophet Jeremiah to tentatively envisage the future. That way both optimism and human agency can play a part in moulding that future – a different future -something I believe Jeremy Corbyn has grasped and the reason I support him.

… and, of course, by the criterion used by some here, you can dismiss anything written by Marx, Engels or Gramsci … whoever … because they all had middle class roots … and, of course, in Engels’ case was definitely from the class of the owners of capital. Jeez! He might even have scanned the Manchester Guardian at some time! 🙂

“In episode 2, from Adam Smith last week, we leap forward a hundred years to Karl Marx. A towering figure in world, let alone economic, history, and endlessly fascinating as much as for his personal foibles as for his vast influence on the course of twentieth century history. Few figures are more divisive. Yet is he fully or even remotely understood by one tenth of those who have strong views on him? Are his central ideas now discredited by history, or are we still waiting for his philosophy to stop merely describing the world, as for many it still does, and instead, as he famously declared, to start changing it? Is Marxism genuinely gaining ground even as his economic predictions gather dust? And what exactly is Dialectical Materialism? All this plus jokes in 28 minutes.https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0004mgp

We recognise that technology is changing the nature of work and contaminating the planet, both hugely disadvantageous to ordinary people like us.
We know that the present capitalist system’s uncontrolled profit/growth-at-any-cost obsession is almost completely to blame.
We know that one nation in isolation can’t solve either MMGW or the massive joblessness that AI/robotics guarantees with global capitalism running the economies of the world to benefit a minority.

If we accept the above then it follows that enormously greater co-operation between nations – on all fronts – is absolutely essential and yet independence movements are fighting to fragment nations further – UK from EU, Scotland and Wales from the UK and so many others worldwide it’s too depressing to count them.

If I had any respect left for how the “elites” of our species are managing the only planet they’ll ever have I’d despair.
As it is I gave up on us when I was six.
Since then I’ve been a depressed and mostly-disinterested observer because it’s been obvious to me since then that there’s no way to fix this planet or even human society under the twin yokes of capitalism and religion.
So there 🙂

“It’s time to bury this charade and fully concentrate on defeating Farage and his divisive, xenophobic ramblings. We can do that with our message of socialist hope in Britain and across our continent. Only Labour can stop the far-right from winning in our country on May 23rd.“As a Brexit deal with the Tories won’t happen, Labour should have a clear message for the last days of the European election campaign – our party will fight tooth and nail for any Tory deal to be put to a confirmatory vote.”

If brexit had been delivered, as promised, Farage would be still be wondering the streets of Washington like a lost lamb.

The brexit referendum killed UKIP, on account of beings one trick pony. Look at it’s staggering since (I do miss Paul Nutall and his amazing adventures. Its decended into a (slightly) more National Front type party now)…

The only thing that’s keeping these zombies alive is the total failure to administer democracy, demos kratos. And Farage is going to get stronger still in 8 days time…

Now some of you will resort to name calling and allegations of stupidity, but (as history shows time and time again) if you take away someone’s voice, they’ll get more extreme in order to be heard.

We can all indulge in what-ifs but its unlikely to achieve much. We are where we are and the Labour leadership ignoring the majority of its membership and voters doesn’t go down well with either. Especially when those members were promised something different.

UKIP died on it’s arse immediately after brexit. Farage ran to Trump (who hilariously kicked him to the kerb immediately). He floated around like a spirit, mocked by other MEPs for his stance, and here we are, watching him phoenix from the ashes.

And all because democracy has been denied. Say what you like, the proof will be in 8 days. We’ll see who is wrong then, won’t we…